Movie review: Pixar's Up’ reaches new heights

"Up" is quite simply the best Pixar yet, seamlessly melding stirring emotions and thrilling adventure into a classic tale about letting go of the past and embracing the moment.

And that’s just the surface.

Al Alexander

They’ve taken us below the sea, let us peer into the eyes of rats and insects, confronted the monsters in our closets and reminded us that toys and cars are people, too. Now the folks at Pixar have gone and one-upped themselves with “Up.”

It’s quite simply the best Pixar yet, seamlessly melding stirring emotions and thrilling adventure into a classic tale about letting go of the past and embracing the moment.

That’s just the surface, though. Look beyond the breathtakingly beautiful 3D animation and you’ll find everything from clever homages to “Citizen Kane” and “The Wizard of Oz” to characters so richly rendered they seep into your soul.

I’ve seen dozens of these animated affairs over the years and not one has come close to matching the depth of feeling “Up” elicits with its unconventional tale about an aged widower fulfilling his wife’s dream by tying thousands of helium-filled balloons to his rickety old house and flying it to the tepui mountains of northern South America.

What makes “Up” so rousing is that it appeals to our basic instincts to cling to what makes us feel safe while also feeding our need to explore the unknown. Like Carl, the curmudgeonly septuagenarian at the center of the piece, we often sacrifice one for the other, especially as age and responsibilities mount.

So what a thrill it is to see Carl (perfectly voiced by that spunk-hating treasure, Ed Asner) release himself from earth’s chains and suddenly take flight. But as we all know, no one gets away scot-free; there’s always the possibility of the unexpected, the element of surprise that in this instance literally lies on Carl’s doorstep – a thousand feet in the sky.

His name is Russell (voiced wonderfully by 7-year-old Jordan Nagai), a lonely, well-meaning Boy Scout obsessed with earning a merit badge for assisting the elderly. In hopes of fulfilling that quest, he has the misfortune of being just outside Carl’s door at the time of liftoff.

Thus the stage is set for the beginnings of a beautiful – and contentious – friendship that will grow into something quite special; assuming, of course, they first survive the trip and then the many hidden dangers awaiting them in the wilds of South America.

It’s quite a place, too, filled with towering mesas, a mile-high waterfall and enough flora and fauna to stock a botanical garden. In fact, the landscape, gorgeously drawn in luscious 3D (a Pixar first) by a host of animators under the guidance of director Pete Docter (“Monsters, Inc.”), is practically a character onto itself, constantly changing colors and mood.

It’s the same level of nuance that fuels a script by Docter and Bob Peterson that maintains a sense of realism despite the fantastical nature of a tale that in addition to a flying house includes a prehistoric bird, talking dogs and a crazed explorer who’s spent far too much time away from civilization.

The fun is in the sense of adventure Docter creates, but the heart is in the way he makes you feel the enormity of the grief that’s consumed Carl since the death of his beloved Ellie.

In five short minutes, Docter movingly depicts their lifelong romance in a riveting montage accompanied by Michael Giacchino’s haunting score. Powerful doesn’t begin to describe the effect those five minutes have, leaving you practically drowning in tears. It’s simply Pixar’s finest moment.

It comes just 15 minutes into the movie, too, a monumental testament to Docter’s talent for creating characters we can instantly identify and empathize with. It’s a echelon of emotion matched only by a playful sense of humor that’s rooted in Carl’s cantankerousness (think Walter Matthau at his grumpiest) and the host of critters Docter incorporates, including the gangly Kevin, a towering flightless bird with a sweet tooth.

The biggest laughs, though, are delivered by a pack of dogs lorded over by disgraced explorer Charles Muntz (voice of Christopher Plummer), a budding Colonel Kurtz who’s spent the past 50 years or so living in exile. His mutts, who’ve all been fitted with electronic collars that translate their every thought into English, are as funny as they are fierce thanks to superior voice work by Delroy Lindo, Jerome Ranft and Bob Peterson, who in addition to playing two of the dogs, Dug and Alpha, also co-wrote the script and co-directed the movie.

But then, that’s what makes Pixar so great; the ability and the willingness by everyone on staff to multitask. But it’s their seemingly endless imaginations that allow such witty touches as including an old-fashioned black-and-white newsreel, a la “Citizen Kane,” that introduces us to Muntz back when Carl was an impressionable lad, and in the cleverness of making Carl resemble Spencer Tracy and Muntz look like Kirk Douglas, cleft chin and all.

What sticks with you though in the hours, even days, after you’ve seen the picture is how wonderful it makes you feel. Once again proving that whenever you think you’ve hit bottom, there’s no place to go but “Up.”